


Direct Action at its Finest

by Missmusicluver



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Clint Barton & Darcy Lewis Friendship, Darcy Lewis Feels, Darcy Lewis is the fandom bicycle and I love it, F/M, Falling In Love, Families of Choice, Miscommunication, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Sarcasm, Slow Burn, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Threesome - F/M/M, copious swearing, pinky promises are Universal law and you cant break them - everybody knows that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:34:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,656
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29525103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missmusicluver/pseuds/Missmusicluver
Summary: The first Words your soulmate says to you is inked into your skin at birth.--In which Darcy Lewis becomes a famous singer/song writer after she tried the whole hanging-out-with-superheroes thing that not only almost spectacularly ended her life, but it also ended any desire to find her soulmates - who were probably (most likely) in the same crowd.At the height of her career, Darcy doesn't get a choice in the whole affair when both "halves of her heart", "true magic of her soul", "her missing pieces" (oh gods - she was going to be sick) show up at a private concert for the President of the United States and friends.Unfortunately for everyone involved, Darcy's has never been one for subterfuge.
Relationships: Avengers Team & Darcy Lewis, James "Bucky" Barnes/Darcy Lewis/Steve Rogers
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	Direct Action at its Finest

**Author's Note:**

> (Very) inspired by Taylor Swift's "the 1".

_**Clint Barton** : “The city is flying and we’re fighting an army of robots. And I have a bow and arrow. Nothing makes sense.”_

* * *

* * *

Darcy’s chipped ‘salsa’ red fingernails strummed softly down a beaten wooden guitar, patches of the instrument’s glaze long gone, like scars, from the years it had endured. 

A childhood paradise where a pair of soft, strong, hands had gifted the gleaming strings, rough foster homes where numb fingers had memorized chords, college dorms where determined strums turned into improvised dance parties in the shadows of early dawns, and now, in the middle of a forgotten town, figuring out lyrics to match the memorized melody.

“ _In my defense, I have none,_ ” Darcy sang low in her throat and barely audible, her own exhaustion sidelined at the emerging lyrics richotteching in her mind. 

Her eyes flickered to the closed wooden door between the single bedroom that Darcy and Jane shared and the living room where Jane had set up her lab space. Her voice was quiet in the unairconditioned fall air, but she made sure to sing softly enough as to not wake Jane asleep on the couch in the room next door. 

Jane had finally fallen asleep after a 32 hour stint of _science!_ and Darcy didn’t want her boss/bestfriend/graduation-recommendation to get back up for at least another 9 hours, impending scientific breakthroughs or not. 

The astrophysicist might have been the smartest woman Darcy had ever had the pleasure to know, but she had no sense of balance when it came to managing her professional obsession and her personal health. Frankly, Darcy had never met another woman, another _human_ , who could consistently run off of nothing but black coffee and pop-tarts. 

Darcy paused. That sounded like a good bridge for a song. 

She made a quick note in her Stark Phone, pausing to put away her battered iPod in the front pocket of her backpack, and came back to her guitar. She plucked at a guitar string softly, willing herself to let the memories of her latest ex -‘boyfriend’ to freshen in her mind. 

The way his smile had first made her feel during an off campus kick-back, the disappointment that had flooded her when he’d first spoken and his Words didn’t reflect one of the two lines of script down her back. The rapture they’d shared in laughs and fumbling fingers in the back of his car. The crushing anguish when his Words were said from a bartender down the street of the apartment they had looked at together. 

She closed her eyes.

“ _In my defense, I have none,_ ” she sang again. “ _For never leaving well enough alone. But it would've been fun,_ ” she sang, the whisper of her chords barely filling the bedroom of the dingy New Mexico rental.

“ _If you would've been, the one._ ”

* * *

In the weeks following Darcy’s quiet music session, her whole world exploded. 

Aliens, gods, and powerful government agencies had the power to completely upheave her carefully built life. Her boss, her _Jane_ had found her Words - her fucking soulmate, with an ancient Norse god. Who Darcy had hit with Jane’s van, and then tazed, and who at first sight seemed like a hot, crazy, extra from a LARPing convention. 

A Norse god. Not capital “G”. But _still._

The worst part about it though, was that she liked him. Them. She liked all of the Norse warrior squad that dropped out of the sky and helped destroy/save the town.

She liked Thor’s genuine inability for malicious thoughts or actions. Was he arrogant? Oh yes, absolutely - especially as he usually addressed himself with natural confidence as “mighty” in regular intervals. But he was never cruelly loathsome. Specifically not to Jane, a mere mortal. He treated her as if she herself had created the twinkle of stars and hung them in the length or her hair and the curves of her shy smiles. 

Darcy had seen Thor's Words at the hospital, his eyes wide and settled on her best friend. They were in very plain English on his right arm, covering the majority of the inside of his bicep with " _Come on, big guy. Do me a favor and don't be dead, okay? Open your eyes and look at me_ ".

Apparently, Jane had explained to her, the weird runes that Jane had down her left forearm was the language of Asgard. " _My wait has been long, but the Fates have surely blessed me_."

It was nauseatingly romantic, and they both looked as if literal hearts would start popping into thin air between them, the laws of the universe be damned. 

Fandral, Volstagg, and Hogun, also apparently known as the Warriors Three, were the older brothers she’d never have but would absolutely trust to hold her drink at a party. Vicious golden retrievers with swords, all of them. 

Sif probably killed her own spiders. She had big ‘pass me the shoe’ energy. Enough said. 

She even eventually liked the government cronies who had the fucking _nerve_ to steal her iPod. Agent Coulson and the bird man - Hawkeye. She had found that while being huge dicks for stealing Jane's life work and her only source of good music, the both of them were all kinds of powerful and fearsome in their own right. (Clint had actual _exploding arrows_ and bottom-line, Coulson was a different type of terrifying). 

Darcy had found it out the hard way when she’d tried to steal back her iPod. An ungodly high note of terror (100% Clint, _not_ her, the douche), a burning desk, and one of Coulson’s Narrowed-Eyes-of-Danger look later, Darcy had been forced to concede that she wouldn’t be getting her iPod back until SHIELD decided to give it back. 

They had an unparalleled sense of humor brought out by Darcy’s incessant sarcasm and then later, by her shitty tequila. (Liquor was her love language and it didn’t surprise her at all that her abhorrent taste in alcohol endeared them to her).

Darcy liked them all. She also understood that in the world of powerful yachts, she was most definitely the kayak. 

By the time Thor had been called home and left Jane in tears in the middle of a dying town, Darcy had been ready to call the SHIELD agents tentative friends. 

Clint fist bumped her as the spy agency packed up to leave, and he grinned. “You know, you got a good voice. That song - I know a couple of people who’ve been there before too.”

The blood from Darcy’s cheeks fled, and the New Mexican heat was leached from her bones. “What?” she asked faintly. 

Clint tapped his ear piece. “Had to bug the place early on -” He rubbed the back of his head, fully aware of the naked panic on her face, and cleared his voice. “I mean, it wasn’t on purpose, but yeah- we heard you.” He fingered the edge of his bow. “Part of the routine workup.”

Darcy quickly scanned the agents working to pack up their temporary base. “How many?” she asked. Who had been eavesdropping on - her most personal self? 

She’d never performed her songs in any public vicinity _ever_ , and the fact was that she hadn’t known that random IT agents and apparently _Clint_ had heard her struggle through songs that were intimately private. It made her feel sick. Every time she swapped lyrics or rewrote a note in the asylum of her rented bedroom, it confessed a little bit more of her story. Miniscule pieces of her soul that she didn’t share with anyone, not even Jane.

And it was probably _recorded_ somewhere in a SHIELD database for forever. 

Clint looked uncomfortable at her question. “Uh - everyone?” he said. “Drew in Comms pulled up something and showed the rest of the ground tea- are you okay?”

Darcy had taken a step back, and Clint lifted his hands like he was going to catch her. “I mean everyone loved it!” he rushed out. “Didn’t see such a throaty sound coming out of a thing like _you_ , bu-”

“Of fuck,” Darcy shook her head.

Clint stepped forwards and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. The leather of his gloves were soft against her thin t-shirt and the smell of something like sandalwood filled her nose. The unrelenting midday sun was bright against the curves of his biceps, and it drew her eyes instead of his face. _Gods, the man had some biceps._

_Nothing like Thor’s - but still, damn._

“You want me to wipe it?” Clint said leaning down and looking at her seriously. 

Darcy froze. She held his eyes, gauging the sincerity behind his words, and then nodded. The two rows of script down her back seemed to shiver down her spine. “It’s just -”

“Naw I get it,” Clint interrupted. He let go of her shoulder, and touched his SHIELD vest, right over his heart. “Some things, SHIELD shouldn’t get to keep on people.” The corners of his eyes lifted with his smile, and Darcy realized just how blue they were behind his tan skin. “Don’t worry, I’ll get it down for you.”

Her eyes widened. “I mean - you have no idea, _thank you_ , but - why do you care?”

"Eh," he shrugged a shoulder, and the serious air around him disappeared. "Just remember the little guys when you get big, right?" He laughed at his own lame ass joke, and Darcy decided right there that he was not a tentative friend, he was best friend material. 

"My dude," Darcy wrapped an arm around him like they'd done it their whole lives, and led them back towards Jane and Selvig. "If that ever happens I'll make you my manager. Count on it." She held out her pinky to him and he laughed before hooking his around hers. 

That was the day that Darcy became friends with not only a god, but one of SHIELD's best spies. 

And honestly, that was the beginning of the end. 

**Author's Note:**

> For those of you following me for my other stories -
> 
> *please don't kill me*
> 
> I know this is brand spankin new, and yeah, I shouldn't be starting something else from scratch, but I'm getting on those updates, I SWEAR.


End file.
